Fortuna Minor
by tinbiscuit
Summary: Well - removing the locket from its basin in the cave was certainly the last thing Regulus Black ever did.


**Fortuna** **Minor**

Chapter One: An Ending...

* * *

There are a great many things Regulus wishes he'd done differently.

Not taking the mark, would have been an excellent start.

Bringing someone - anyone - with him into this thrice-blasted cave, is another. But Kreacher had looked so terrified at the entrance to the cave - twisting his long fingers fretfully, ears quivering, his knobby little knees beginning to quake violently... Regulus couldn't bring himself to make the one person in this world that's ever properly cared about him relive something so dreadful. All the same, he regrets not bringing one other person with him. Death is a lonely business.

The face of his brother, head thrown back in raucous laughter that time when Regulus lost the grip on his chocolate frog and it spring-boarded itself off of Sirius's nose, passes before his mind's eye - a sweet, hazy memory of childhood, long before school and war and their mother's cruelty had divided them so irrevocably.

Oh - how he regrets that, too.

A precious gasp of air escapes his lips as the pair of pale, bloated limbs wrapped tightly around his torso squeeze tighter. And though the stagnant water is too black and deep for visibility, Regulus can all too easily imagine what the bubbles look like as they fritter away towards the surface like the rest of his regrets.

There are more arms and fingers grasping around his limbs now, continuing to pull at him. The flesh is spongy and slippery; for all that their grips are unbreakable. Regulus's mind grows foggy with the lack of oxygen and his lungs burn for it. His chest burns as well, and through the darkening haze encompassing his thoughts, a voice whispers. It begs desperately, sometimes hissing unintelligibly, frantic pleas that he realizes are not his own.

_Nonono no please not death not death notdeathnotnownotever mustn't mustn't SHAN'T _

And Regulus clamps his lips together ever tighter, for fear of laughing. That he should ever agree with this small, pitiful shard of the Dark Lord's soul about anything! But - oh! He does not want to die either. It is nearly insensate with terror over it's own doom, and the locket - which, in a moment of clarity (or stupidity) before the desperation for water had entirely overwhelmed his senses, Regulus had hung about his neck for safe keeping - burns ever hotter on his skin.

Regulus's mind continues to darken, and as cold, pulpy fingers grip tightly around his throat and finally force his lips open, he thinks desperately, almost irritably at that wailing, sniveling little voice, _Don't burn me, you idiot, burn THEM._

As his consciousness finally fades into nothing, Regulus hears that little voice, desperate and furious and wild as it cries out, _yesYESYES BURN WE SHALL BURN THEM BURNHOT_

_Yes, _Regulus whispers back, as something within him snaps, once and for all, and ignites through his limbs and palms and toes and head - _burn them, break them_.

It is the last thought Regulus ever has.

* * *

Jack Appleton was not quite fifty; not quite old enough to remember more than the handful of news reels his older sister Breenie had dragged him off to see during the War, or how exhausted his mother was coming home late at night into their cramped little flat smelling like machine oil and stale cigarettes.

He would like to think he's lead a decent life, trawling up and down the Sussex coast, running a little chip shop with his wife and eldest son who helps out in the summers when the tourists come around. He's not the adventurous sort - helping out with the bucket brigade when the necessity presents itself, or taking his wife Lydia on a special trip to the Lake District for their anniversary two years past is enough excitement for him.

So when an explosion on the side of the cliffs rocks deafens his ears shakes the world so that his boat almost capsizes, Jack thinks he can be forgiven the blind fear that whites out his mind.

"Dad!? Dad!" He's physically shaken out of his panic by his younger son, and he automatically drags the boy close to his chest in a crushing hug. The thought that his sweet-tempered Matty could've been thrown overboard and he wouldn't have noticed crosses his mind and he shivers as if death itself has stepped over his own grave.

"We're not staying out - come on!" The boy nods dumbly as Jack rushes his son ahead of him into the boxy little wheelhouse of their old trawler and sets a course back to the wharf. It's early yet; the Appleton's hadn't even set their nets out. They make their way back to the docks carefully - dust is thick on the air, mingling with the fog in the pre-dawn light, and Jack has turned the high beams up, not wanting to chance hitting anything that might've been blown off the cliff face. They continue on like that in silence near to twenty minutes, too shocked to speak until his son swears suddenly, points fearfully off to the right of their boat.

He redirects the beams off in the direction his boy's pointing and can't find it in himself to reprimand his son's tongue. The Matty begins retching into the little trash can in the corner after the beams light up a trail of burnt, cracked body parts - arms and torsos and good _god_, but there's no _end _ to it a -

Jack redirects the beams toward their course once more and pulls the right side shade down on that window of the wheelhouse and quickens their pace.

_It may be time, _he thinks a bit hysterically, _to sell the business and move the family up to Coventry._

* * *

His first, earliest memory is tangible. He feels fire, and water on his skin - the scent of cold stone and decay and salt is overwhelming. All around him, there is a pervading, violently purple light - both within him and without. He burns, and the feeling is somehow both comforting and painful.

There are disorienting flashes of memory - here, a white, bloated hand, there a milky gaze beneath a greasy curtain of hair - but these bits of memory flash away before his mind can properly sort or make any sense of them. Perhaps it doesn't matter. He has the feeling that, whoever he was before, he was... less, somehow.

He was less, but now he's _more_ \- _better_, now. Different, and... Alive.So very, _very much **alive**_.

And he is _free. _Oh!

And sore. So very, very sore... He whines - rolls over onto his side on the rocky shore as a shallow wave crests over his bare, aching feet.

Even his teeth ache. His skin, exposed as it is to the noonday sun, is as red as a newborn's. His lips and eyes are crusted with dried salt, and he struggles to open his eyelids; there is no way to tell what hurts more - the sun when he finally does manage to open his eyes, or the pain of unsealing his cracked and bleeding lips - but he cries out either way.

He laughs then, fiercely, joyfully, madly, and then begins to sob.

Because everything hurts, and it's wonderful.

_Because everything hurts. _

Eventually, he does crawl further up the beach, moving away from the tide that's slowly rolling inland and into the tall grasses where he finally props himself up on a bit of bleached driftwood. Exhaustion overtakes his body then, and for the rest of the afternoon he passes in and out of consciousness. With the swaying fronds of sea oats brushing against his face in a gentle caress and the rhythmic crashing of waves intertwining with the distant call of seabirds, he drifts until the sands around him begin to cool with the setting sun. Even then, despite the rapid chill he cannot bring himself to move, and shivers through the night.

The sun has nearly risen the next day before he drags himself up onto shaky, coltish legs and begins wandering further from the shore, passing through close-growing scrub that thickens into trees before finally opening onto a wide dirt path.

He's not sure how far he's walked, but it's gone mid morning by the time he crests the top of one hill and comes upon a caravan that sprawls to one side of a cluster of enormous, colorfully striped tents. Something about the sight excites the whispers at the back of his mind, a vague familiarity - but his head is pounding abominably, and despite the warmth of the sun, he shivers feverishly. Barely managing to stumble down the other side of the hill towards the nearest trailer in the camp, half leaning on the door to keep himself standing, he knocks heavily on it.

Furious steps pound towards the door and it is thrust open so violently that it catches him on the nose before he can get clear. A passing whisper in his mind tells him that she is shouting in French just before he cracks his temple on her front step and blacks out.

* * *

_Pietr is a moron! _

Édith is livid - that, that _bastard! _How dare he start pounding on her door when she's not even finished dressing for her first performance! It's a Sunday! He should be setting up with the vendors, not pestering the one person in this damn company who has no interest in - ugh! She throws down her palette in disgust, snatches her dressing gown from its hook and draws it on as she stomps angrily to answer her door.

She is viciously satisfied at the hard, meaty smack she hears when her door collides with Pietr's face.

Except, it's not Pietr at all.

Édith catches a brief glimpse of dark eyes shining with fever set into a thin face. The stranger can't be out of his teens yet; he's all over blood and bruises with a newly-bloodied nose to match. Before she can bring herself to say anything else, the stranger loses his footing and smashes his temple on the stairs that lead up to her camper.

"_Fuck!"_

She calls out shrilly for the medic and ducks down to roll the boy over.

* * *

Author's Notes: I don't own part or parcel of KHR, Harry Potter, or any of their affiliates.

Please Review - and stay tuned!


End file.
